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Seventeen-year-olds will soon have access to emergency contraception without a prescription, U.S. health regulators said on Wednesday, complying with a court order to ease restrictions on over-the-counter sales of the so-called “morning-after” pill.

Last month, a U.S. court ruled the Food and Drug Administration under the Bush administration had allowed politics to cloud its decision-making process regarding availability of the Plan B drug which had been restricted to those 18 and older.

It ordered the agency to allow nonprescription sales to 17-year-olds, and to reconsider its decision regarding over-the-counter access to Plan B.

Another idiotic Bush administration intrusion into reproductive liberty bites the dust!! And just in time for “the Pill Kills, 2009“! W00t!

The era during which the likes of the religious Wright (pun intended) held sway on what should rightfully be medical and scientific decisions are, thankfully, over. And no group seems more relieved than the non-ideological researchers who’d watched years of hard earned effort for scientific integrity wasted in a matter of months. It’s telling that no one at the FDA has voiced a problem with the unprecedented mandate from the President Obama to overturn the decision. Conversely, senior staff resigned from the FDA over the political/ideological handling of the application during the Bush years and the Christian right’s destructive influence on agency policy.

A new day is at hand. Vindication is the order of business. Today we have prevailed and 17 year old women are the victors. We’ve always known Wright is wrong. The sweetest victory is her new found irrelevance. (Emphasis mine)